The midterm elections this fall will supposedly be all about the “culture of corruption” in Washington, wherein noble-minded reformers—most of them Democrats, presumably—will rail against lobbyists who are perverting and distorting government. So far, though, lobbyists are just carrying on as usual. Public Citizen released a report today looking at donations by lobbyists and their PACs—in 2006, lobbyist donations to members of Congress are on pace to be about 10 percent higher than they were in 2004 (totaling $34 million), which were in turn 90 percent higher than they were in 2000 (totaling $18 million).
Interestingly, Jack Abramoff is only the 30th-ranked lobbyist donor. And not surprisingly, most of the money goes to members of the Senate and House appropriations committees, which ultimately decides how federal money gets spent. Supposedly this is different from the actual bribery that took place when Duke Cunningham was sitting on the House appropriations committee, but the dividing line here seems pretty hazy.
